Jinho Ferreira stars in his original solo show, "Cops and Robbers," at the Marsh Berkeley.

Photo: Jim Dennis

Jinho Ferreira stars in his original solo show, "Cops and Robbers,"...

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Hip-hop star and police officer Jinho “The Piper” Ferreira stars in his original solo show "Cops and Robbers," a tale of law enforcement, the media, and the black community. The show runs through Sept. 13 at The Marsh Berkeley. Photo by Jim Dennis

Photo: Jim Dennis

Hip-hop star and police officer Jinho “The Piper” Ferreira...

Image 3 of 3

Hip-hop star and police officer Jinho “The Piper” Ferreira stars in his original solo show "Cops and Robbers," a tale of law enforcement, the media, and the black community. The show runs through Sept. 13 at The Marsh Berkeley. Photo by Jim Dennis

In his solo show "Cops and Robbers," Jinho "The Piper" Ferreira knows what he's talking about. By day, he's a cop, and he's dealt with his share of robbers.

But the show, which he has been working on for several years, tackles even bigger issues like racism, community and the complexities of law enforcement. The Oakland-born Ferreira had never created a theater piece before, but he did have plenty of performing experience. Before becoming an Alameda County Sheriff's deputy, he was a rapper, part of Flipsyde, an internationally known trio that toured with the Black Eyed Peas and Snoop Dogg, among others.

Ferreira felt the need to tell a story, but it wasn't one that could be told through his music.

"I wanted multiple perspectives and to go deep into each perspective," Ferreira says from his East Bay home. "I wanted to show the conflicts that exist and how diverse everyone's experience is. It's difficult to do that in a 3 1/2-minute song."

A similar impulse to do something big and impactful is what drove Ferreira to leave the music business and become part of the law enforcement world.

"After the New Year's (morning, 2009) killing of Oscar Grant by a BART police officer, I was at a protest at the Fruitvale BART station with thousands of people of all different racial and socioeconomic backgrounds," Ferreira says. "I really wondered why we were there, what we expected to accomplish, and that got me thinking about the greatest change we could make. In our best-case scenario, we would replace cops who may be racist or heavy handed or unfair. But who would replace them? I knew I wouldn't, and as I looked around, I didn't see anyone there I could conceive of replacing them."

If people detested the police so much that they could never fathom becoming one, Ferreira saw no possibility of change. "I had to shut up or do something," he says.

After completing the Alameda Sheriff's Academy (he was the commencement speaker for his class), Ferreira joined the ranks. That was more than three years ago, and once he immersed himself into his community, he felt inspired to create a play and wrote "Cops and Robbers" in only four days.

"I had never acted before, but I thought theater would be the best place for these stories," he says of the show in which he plays 17 characters.

"I'm an artist because I want to make beautiful things that matter," Ferreira says. "Art matters because it has the capacity to change things. I feel like at this point in my life, I'm doing all I can to make change."